"Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance..." -Eudora Welty
Setting has always been important to me; first as a reader, now as a writer. I love finding a place that inspires its own story. Here is one of those places, and those stories...
Some places are made for trysts.
It's dark. The air is heavy with the smell of garlic and barbecue, damp with the fog rolling in off the ocean. The parched grass is packed with chrome-plated motorcycles. Blues music and raucous laughter filter through the open doors of the surrounding bars.
A woman stands, her back against the wall. The heat of the day has soaked into the brick. Now it seeps into her bones, warms her from the inside-out. She lights a cigarette. Her silver-ringed fingers cup the flame protectively, even though there's no breeze.
She isn't surprised when the man steps out of the shadows. She wasn't waiting for him -or was she? This time of night, people do what they can to forget. He strides towards her with singular purpose, stops so close she can smell the fine leather of his battered jacket.
It's dark. The air is heavy with the smell of garlic and barbecue, damp with the fog rolling in off the ocean. The parched grass is packed with chrome-plated motorcycles. Blues music and raucous laughter filter through the open doors of the surrounding bars.
A woman stands, her back against the wall. The heat of the day has soaked into the brick. Now it seeps into her bones, warms her from the inside-out. She lights a cigarette. Her silver-ringed fingers cup the flame protectively, even though there's no breeze.
She isn't surprised when the man steps out of the shadows. She wasn't waiting for him -or was she? This time of night, people do what they can to forget. He strides towards her with singular purpose, stops so close she can smell the fine leather of his battered jacket.
Neither speaks. The woman takes a final drag of nicotine-rich smoke, and grinds out the cigarette on the brick behind her.
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